Second Time's the Charm
by Lirillith
Summary: The first time they tried a surprise party for Barnaby was a disaster, but why should they let that keep them from trying again?


Notes: Set during (or right at the end of) the episode 14 timeskip - it's October of 1978. And think Hsien-ko from Darkstalkers for Pao-lin's costume. Ivan certainly was when he came up with the idea for her.

* * *

.

* * *

"We can't just _ignore_ his birthday." The way Sky High said it, it sounded like he was rejecting a proposal for kicking puppies.

"I think he meant it, though…" Admittedly, Bunny's anger last year had been about meddling, not just not wanting a birthday party, but he'd also been really clear about not wanting a birthday party, or gift, or dinner, or anything. Then again, he'd been pretty sour in general a year ago.

"I think it'll work if we plan ahead," Blue Rose said. "You know him better now. You could let us into his apartment, right?"

"What? No. It's not like I have keys. _He_ doesn't have keys. His door, like, reads your thumbprint and does a retina scan like on Star Trek and takes a blood sample."

"Then your apartment. It's not going to get screwed up this time just because you're bad at improvising and you trip over your own feet."

"Hey!"

"And poor Sky High won't be left all alone in a cold, dark alleyway…" Fire Emblem cuddled up to Sky High, who was looking distinctly downcast at the memory.

"And I won't get arrested," Antonio added. "For stealing a freaking stuffed bunny because _someone_ had to throw away the receipt."

"And we can plan ahead enough to include Dragon Kid and Origami this time," Fire Emblem added. "Instead of doing it on three hours' notice like last year."

"None of that was my fault!"

"The receipt was."

"Well maybe if you didn't look so damn shifty…"

"So it's settled, right?" Blue Rose asked. "We're going to do this at your place, and we'll all be in Halloween costumes—"

"I don't remember agreeing—"

"And it's your job to bring him without giving away what's up. And this year you'll get him a present, too." Blue Rose always complained about how different she was from her hero persona, but she could be pretty damn bossy when she felt like it.

"It's settled! Fully agreed!"

Kotetsu sighed. Sky High was beaming, Fire Emblem had an arm around his shoulder and was clearly on Sky High's side at the moment, Blue Rose looked thoroughly proud of herself, and from the way Antonio was smirking at him he knew he'd have no support from that quarter.

"Does this mean I have to be in costume too?"

* * *

It did. So he had to get his place fit for guests, and come up with some kind of gift for Bunny, who didn't like _things_, especially not things Kotetsu could afford, and also come up with a costume, and try to convince Bunny to wear a costume on the 31st.

The gift wasn't that hard, but it was kind of a horrifying prospect: Opera tickets. As the ultimate sacrifice, Kotetsu would go with him. He knew Bunny didn't have any kind of season tickets — not enough time — so while there was always the risk they'd have to bail at halftime or intermission or whatever, or worse, right in the middle of whatever the hell opera had, mid-inning or mid-showing or mid-production, it was at least something that Bunny wouldn't buy for himself. And hopefully he'd appreciate having Kotetsu along. Maybe. It was the thought that counted, right?

The costume was harder. The last time he'd dressed up for Halloween had been when Kaede was three; he and Tomoe had each taken her for one block's worth of trick-or-treating, her setting out to the right from their house and him from the left, and he'd gone as Mr. Legend. He had no idea where to find that costume. Maybe he could steal a lab coat from Saito and go as a mad scientist who'd had a growth spurt.

"You're _hopeless,_" Blue Rose said, hands on hips, when he admitted he didn't have anything yet, three days beforehand. "You don't even have any ideas? If you have an idea we could help you put it together."

"I kinda always went as Mr. Legend…"

She sighed. "Do you have any clothes that are kind of torn up and stained?"

"I guess so. Why?"

"Wear those and come here early. I'll make you into a zombie."

"How, by eating my brains?"

"With makeup!"

Fortunately, he managed to dig up the Mr. Legend costume that evening, and with a bit of ironing and airing out, it'd be fine by Halloween. A little tight, he'd bulked up a bit since then, but nothing unbearable. He didn't need to worry about splitting the pants or anything. Blue Rose didn't seem as enthused as he might have expected about that, but maybe she'd been looking forward to doing some gruesome wounds.

Bunny was going to be the big challenge. Not actually delivering him to the house — he was amenable enough to Kotetsu's suggestion of grabbing a bite and heading back to Kotetsu's place to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters — but getting him into some kind of costume. "Come on, just so you'll fit in with me," Kotetsu pleaded.

"You could always change into normal clothes, you know. I know you have a spare outfit in your locker."

"But it's _Halloween."_

"I am not wearing bunny ears."

"But—"

"No."

That meant plan B, a pair of plastic vampire fangs. Kotetsu clicked them in Bunny's face, watching his partner pretend they weren't there while leaning gradually further and further away, until finally Bunny gave in. "What are those?"

"Fangs! Come on, it's barely even a costume."

"It's barely even sanitary. You want me to put those in my mouth?"

"What?" Kotetsu looked at the fangs. Okay, so he'd been touching them kind of a lot. "They're just, y'know, hands."

Barnaby sighed. "If I wash these and attempt to wear them, will you stop pestering me?"

"Absolutely!"

"Fine. Give them here."

* * *

Kotetsu attempted to pretend to work while Bunny was off sterilizing the fangs of partner-cooties, but he was happy to drop it when Bunny returned. "Kofefu, dese fings…" Bunny gave up at that, extracted them from his mouth, and held them between his thumb and forefinger like they were infected. With his own spit. "I can't talk while wearing them, let alone eat."

"Awww."

"Look, if it's that important to you—" Kotetsu perked up instantly. "Don't you have any ideas besides bunny ears?"

"Not really— wait. Wait a minute…. yes. Yes I do."

"I'm going to regret this, aren't I."

"Nah! It's gonna be fun! Let's go."

* * *

"No one can ever say you've got a swelled head," Kotetsu said, giving the paper crown a minute adjustment. "I mean, these things are kid-sized."

"This is such a bad idea on so many levels. What if someone gets a photo of me wearing this? And how is this a Halloween costume?"

"Easy! You're going as King of Heroes."

Bunny extracted a french fry from the bag and popped it in his mouth. "I'm already King of Heroes. That's not really how costumes work, is it?"

"Okay, that's a good point." Kotetsu reclaimed the bag of fast food, and Barnaby fastidiously pulled a napkin from the bag, wiped his hands, and then reached into his pocket for his car keys. "King of Burgers."

"Kotetsu…" He unlocked the car door, though, and Kotetsu rounded the car to climb in. "Do I have to keep wearing this?"

"Yes!"

* * *

As if Kotetsu had needed any proof of Bunny's improved disposition, the fact he kept wearing the silly crown for the entire drive over to Kotetsu's place would have done it. He didn't even demand an explanation, though he was probably chalking it up to Kotetsu being Kotetsu. That, and he was more curious about trick-or-treaters. That was the pretext — they were going to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters at Kotetsu's house.

"You really never went?"

"I think my parents took me trick-or-treating on my fourth birthday? It's not that clear a memory. I mostly remember the cake and the present. I certainly never went after that."

That was a hell of a way to bring a kid up, Kotetsu thought, but he kept it to himself. A traumatized little kid might not have gotten much fun out of dressing up as something spooky and going out after dark anyway. Whoever was taking care of him might have tried and run into a superpowered tantrum. "It's pretty simple. Kids'll ring the doorbell, we open it and they say 'trick or treat.' So we give 'em candy, tell 'em how cute they are or pretend they're scary, and their moms hassle them to say thank you. Then they go on, and lather rinse repeat."

"Do tricks ever enter the picture?"

"Not really with little kids. Teenagers sometimes get up to no good…" He certainly had, though he'd mostly focused on patrolling the area to stop any dastardly pranksters armed with toilet paper or eggs. _Possibly_ he and Antonio had written all over Tomoe's car once with shoe polish. Maybe. Could have been somebody else. "Not really in my neighborhood, but in general. Especially out in the country, where they're bored."

"Do you already have the candy?"

"_Gah!_ I knew I forgot something!" It wasn't just an act to get Bunny to his place; he really did intend to hand out candy to neighborhood kids, or set some of the other heroes to the task. He also intended to introduce Bunny to carving pumpkins, but the pumpkins (he figured he could occupy a few people that way) were already purchased and waiting on the kitchen counter.

There was a limit to Bunny's recently-developed patience. He left the crown in the car when they went into the drugstore to buy candy.

* * *

But he did put it back on before they reached Kotetsu's condo, much to Kotetsu's relief. He didn't want to have to insist too hard and explain why; he'd already made the birthday boy suspicious when he'd texted Antonio about where they were.

But not so suspicious that when Kotetsu, holding the bag of burger wrappers, let them into his house, and the cast of Hero TV all popped up from behind Kotetsu's furniture and kitchen counter to yell "Surprise!" Bunny wasn't surprised. In his way. Which meant his eyes kind of widened, but this was Bunny and you took what you could get.

"Much better engineered than last year," he said calmly. "I appreciate not being held at gunpoint."

"Oh, Handsome, you're such a spoilsport!" Just because Fire Emblem was the loudest one pouting didn't mean the others weren't grumbling too.

"Hey, come on, he was surprised. Right, Bunny?" He slung an arm around Bunny's shoulder. If he'd had time to plan, he wouldn't have used the arm holding their trash bag full of discarded food wrappers, but it wasn't like it was old and moldy. They'd just finished the burgers about ten minutes ago.

"Very much so," Bunny agreed, still not sounding remotely surprised. "And now Kotetsu's insistence I wear a costume finally makes sense."

It did. They were all pretty impressively costumed up, except Antonio. He was wearing horns on his head, but Kotetsu couldn't tell if he was supposed to be a bull or a devil. Fire Emblem had definitely gone for devil; in addition to the horns, he had on some kind of red latex bodysuit and he was carrying a pitchfork. Blue Rose was a witch, though granted that just meant black dress, hat, and tights with spiders on them. Origami and Dragon Kid had costumes that confused him for a second; Origami looked like he was wearing a white yukata or something and had a triangle of cloth on his forehead, and Dragon Kid was wearing some distinctly Chinese-looking outfit and had a piece of paper hanging in front of her face — oh yeah, that was some kind of Chinese ghost or vampire, and Origami was a Japanese ghost. And just to complete the set, Sky High was wearing a sheet like a poncho, and had pale makeup with dark stuff around his eyes. So Blue Rose got to play makeup artist after all.

"So there you go," Kotetsu said. "Happy birthday, Bunny." He gave his partner's shoulder a squeeze, then let go of him to go toss the trash before Bunny could raise any objection to it. "And I wasn't kidding about carving pumpkins," he added.

"So _that's_ what those were for!" Dragon Kid exclaimed. "Can I do one, too?"

"'Course you can! Why did you think I bought so many?"

* * *

Carving pumpkins involved figuring out a way to tie back Dragon Kid's sleeves, which were longer than her arms, and Kotetsu also ended up gutting Bunny's pumpkin for him because Bunny got grossed out by the pumpkin innards. Blue Rose laughed at him but looked like she was about to hurl as she hollowed out her own. Origami ended up helping her. The first trick-or-treaters showed up before they even had a jack-o-lantern ready, because Kotetsu had given out full-sized candy bars one year and the neighborhood would never forget, and Sky High happily took over door-answering duties.

Kotetsu left the kids carving their pumpkins — or in Bunny's case, still thoughtfully paging through images of jack-o-lanterns on his phone for ideas, and in Dragon Kid's case, attacking her gourd with gusto — and checked out the rest of his place. He hadn't wanted to admit it, but it had felt a little weird letting the others have the run of his house while he was out. Fortunately, all the party preparations — the food, the cake, the decorations — all looked fantastic. Admittedly, his bar for the decorating looking fantastic was set at "probably not that hard to clean up later," but they'd met it; some orange and black balloons, a Happy Birthday banner, and, hilariously, a cardboard Barnaby standee. He had to find out who'd secured that one. Though it might be a little creepy to run into if he had to pee in the middle of the middle of the night. Maybe he could get it to Kaede somehow.

The cake looked somewhat fancier than his wedding cake had, so that was probably Fire Emblem's doing. Or so he'd thought, but Blue Rose had pointedly informed him it was _carrot_ cake, so she'd probably been involved. Pumpkin-themed, not graveyard-themed, so that was good. Most of the food seemed to be reasonably fancy catered stuff, probably also Fire Emblem's work, except for the skull-shaped cookies and pan de los muertos, which were from a Mexican bakery a few blocks from his house and probably appearing courtesy of Antonio.

"Way better than last year," Antonio said, as he was flipping through his DVDs. "What are you looking for?"

"Some of those old cheesy monster movies from when we were kids. You know, like they always had at the drive-in?"

"They put those on DVD? And you pay money for 'em?"

"Sure, why not? Nostalgia, you know? And it fits the party theme." Tomoe had loved to make fun of them, the real reason. Maybe Antonio remembered that, because he just shook his head and tapped the edge of the _Attack of the Scorpion-Men From Mars_ case. Good choice.

* * *

Dragon Kid's jack-o-lantern ended up with three eyes and a secondary, off-center nose, though she swore the three eyes were intentional. Origami's first pumpkin was pretty standard, but the second was an elaborate carving of the Bunny emblem Saito had designed. Kotetsu pouted a little, but like Origami explained, it _was_ Bunny's birthday. Blue Rose's pumpkin was mostly a standard face — triangle nose, rounded eyes, snaggle-toothed grin — but then she'd clearly gotten inspired by Origami's artistry and tried a kind of angular-looking rose on the other side of the pumpkin.

Bunny's, for all his preliminary research, was a totally orthodox jack-o-lantern with slightly uneven eyes, but then he carved glasses on it. Only last-minute intervention from Origami, who clearly knew his way around a pumpkin, kept him from being so thorough with the glasses that he just carved a visor-like cutout around the eyes; Kotetsu was pretty sure the pumpkin would still cave in there in a day or two, but it ought to last out the night.

The cake was indeed carrot cake, and Bunny's gifts were all rabbit-themed — coffee mugs and stuffed toys and a rabbit-eared hoodie — to Kotetsu's suppressed delight and Bunny's polite tolerance. Bunny was also apparently enjoying handing out candy, especially when the tiny Sky Highs and Rock Bisons and Barnabies and Wild Tigers recognized him, and he could make shushing motions, give them "see ya" salutes when they left, and be rewarded with awed children and swooning mothers or occasionally fathers. It was kind of cute to watch, Kotetsu had to admit, even if he was a little grumpy that the Wild Tiger costumes were often either on the parents or on the baby siblings who hadn't chosen their costumes. It meant the parents got to escort the set around but the kid who picked got to be Barnaby.

"At least it means Wild Tiger costumes are selling," Barnaby murmured to him at the end of the evening. The Scorpion-Men had been succeeded by _Night of the Pigeons,_ and that had been followed by Origami, who'd come overprepared and apparently gotten tired of opening the door and explaining his and Dragon Kid's costumes, hooking up some gaming system and some creepy horror game. Silent something. Dragon Kid and Sky High seemed absorbed and terrified, anyway, and Blue Rose was lingering in the area of the TV and pretending not to.

"It doesn't bug me that much," Kotetsu lied. "My little mini-mes are cute."

"They are," Bunny agreed. "And there were a few older ones, like the girl with the tutu."

Tutu and fairy wings, and Wild Tiger official costume. He hadn't been totally sure how to feel about that when Bunny first called him to the door to admire her, but she'd been so proud as she twirled around he couldn't help smiling whenever he thought of her. "True," he agreed. "Would it have been creepy to take a picture?"

"Probably."

Speaking of pictures, he checked his phone — sure enough, there was a text from his mom. Kaede had a Barnaby costume this year. The mask was official, but it looked like she'd decided the rest of the store-bought version was unsatisfactory and made her own shoulders, wrist-dealies, ear things and shinguards. No more figure skaters. No more trick-or-treating, either; Mom said she was going to a party. He showed the photo to Barnaby. "My little girl's growing up just like you," he said.

"I think she's more creatively adept than I am," Barnaby said. "My pumpkin was a disaster."

"Oh, pssh, you can't blame yourself for that. You should have seen Kaede's first jack-o-lantern. I bet I've got a picture somewhere…"

* * *

The pace of the trick-or-treaters slowed, and Fire Emblem had to excuse himself — he had some other party to attend. In the way of things, that meant others were starting to make noises about leaving as well. Antonio and Origami started boxing up leftovers for themselves and a few others; Bunny left the door behind to try to urge sections of the cake on everyone. Dragon Kid was grazing on the refreshments as they went into the box.

"You still didn't get him anything," Blue Rose said at Kotetsu's elbow, and he jumped.

"Yeah I did! I just didn't give it to him yet."

"It's not _you_ again, is it?"

"Only kinda." Her eyebrows went up. "Tickets to the opera," he said, lowering his voice. "Don't tell him! I wanted to surprise him, that's why I held onto them. Kinda cost a lot so I didn't want to give them at the same time like I was showing anybody else up."

"Wow, that's…" She trailed off, adjusting her witch hat. "That's a really nice gift for him."

"Figured I should make it up to him after last year, y'know?"

"I dunno. This year he might actually consider you a decent gift."

"Heh. Kind of a late one when we've been partners over a year." He peeled open a candy bar and popped it into his mouth. "Sorry I didn't give you a chance to work your zombie mojo."

She shrugged. "It was just an idea. I better go get some cake before he gives it all away." He wasn't sure why she was so interested when she'd barely touched the cake all evening, but maybe she just didn't have any appetite tonight.

By eleven, it was just him and Bunny, and all the trick-or-treaters looked to be teenagers who, unlike Kaede, felt they were still young enough to prowl the neighborhood with pillowcases for their candy. Kotetsu turned off the porch light.

"So what'd you think?" he asked. Bunny had cracked open a beer and was rinsing off dishes in the sink; the whole thing felt weirdly domestic.

"Of Halloween celebrated your way, or of my birthday party?"

"There's a difference?" He fished in the utility pouch of his Mr. Legend belt. It was totally not a fanny pack, no matter what Tomoe had insisted on calling it. "Hey. I got you a present this year."

"My hands are wet—" So Kotetsu held them in his face so he could get a look. "The Magic Flute?"

"You like opera and all, right? I mean, I dunno anything about that one…"

Bunny reached for a hand towel and dried his hands off. He took the tickets, staring at them for a long moment, and then he set them down gently on a dry portion of the counter, took off his glasses, and pulled something from his pocket to clean them. "I'm told that was my mother's favorite opera," he said quietly, as he put them back on.

"Oh, well, hey." Kotetsu cleared his throat. He wasn't even sure he would have bought them if he'd known that. "Beginner's luck for me, huh?"

"I've never seen it performed. I don't know who you expect to accompany me, but—"

"I figured I'd go with you. If you didn't have anybody else in mind, I mean."

"Really? I thought you hated opera singing."

"I dunno. Maybe it's better live. Shouldn't write anything off till you give it a shot, right?"

Bunny took the glasses off again, and rubbed the bridge of his nose in such a way he might or might not have been wiping his eyes a little. "Thank you, Kotetsu. This has been a wonderful birthday."

"Well… good! That was the idea."

"Though if you're looking for suggestions for improvement, a reduction in rabbit-themed gifts next year—"

"I had nothing to do with that!"


End file.
